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Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her constructive approach. I shall now deal with the detail of the amendments. The new clause, which Lords amendment 37 would introduce, provides for the voluntary collection of personal identifiers—date of birth, signature and national insurance number—from electors alongside the existing process of household registration. It would make it obligatory for electoral registration officers to take steps to obtain that information from 1 July 2010, and it would set a minimum level for those steps. The new clause that Lords amendment 38 would introduce contains a power to make regulations to help enable the voluntary provision of identifying information to take place. The power to make regulations would include, by virtue of proposed subsection (1)(a) and (b), a power to amend the identifiers to be collected during the voluntary phase. That might become necessary if, for example, technological advances required a different type of identifying information to be used. That power would be subject to affirmative resolution, and the Electoral Commission would have to be consulted before it was used. It is potentially a significant power and that is why we believe that it is important to exercise such a high level of scrutiny before it is deployed.